Weekend GamePlan: Picks for Whitney, Saratoga Derby, Yellow Ribbon
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Well, that was a week.
Apparently, we now have a Septuple Crown? The Preakness is on what day when?
While the great minds of racing business forge the sport’s future, it’s a good time to turn your mind to a fine summer Saturday of stakes racing.
Whitney
The Whitney is the excellent Stephen Foster plus the best older filly in the kingdom, Nitrogen, and a somewhat interesting Antiquarian. Great race.
Antiquarian stands a stronger chance than his last two starts superficially suggest, but I’m not as taken, for what it’s worth, with the recent work video as I was with his winter Palm Beach Down drills.
Nitrogen could make me look stupid – many horses have! – but I don’t like her. Don’t see how she gets her Phipps trip, and the Phipps stands as a stark outlier in more mundane form history. She’s a takeout reducer for me.
Narratives! The Sovereignty redemption story. White Abarrio wins his second Whitney a full three years after his first! Can Baeza overcome terrible gate habits?
A veritable Sovereignty fanboy, I wanted to believe he would take his place among truly great horses. He’s just not the same this year as last. I don’t see that changing.
And that dims White Abarrio’s win over Sovereignty in the Oaklawn Handicap. Journalism, third in that race, was retired after failing to progress upon his 3-year-old form. White Abarrio did flounder in the Foster slop but is not for me.
Baeza would hold more appeal were he not, I’d guess, the real wiseguy horse. No surprise if Baeza emerges as the strong second choice – but it will surprise me if, even with a better beginning, he runs down Magnitude.
Took me a minute, but I get it now: Magnitude this year is who I thought Sovereignty would be, only he has much more pace and is a more straightforward ride. Remember when Magnitude, at 43-1 no less, popped a 108 Beyer Speed Figure winning the Risen Star as a February 3-year-old? That was a real thing: Magnitude just needed maturity to consistently produce that performance.
I think he’s bomb proof, even from the rail – tactically adaptable, but also entirely capable of keeping up a strong pace over nine furlongs in top company. The Whitney tale, it turns out, is simple: The favorite wins.
Saratoga Derby
Really wanted to get behind the underappreciated McCready but decided he could only rate as an underneath horse.
West End Kid stands the best chance among the three bunched at the finish of the Belmont Derby. He had the worst trip among them, hung out at least three wide with no cover on both turns. Could he not have gone forward coming off the clubhouse bend and gotten the perfect pressing trip victorious Title Role pulled? West End Kid has struggled with lead changes, but, until last out, he had always eventually changed.
Remember Mamba, though a little farther back, got a better trip than West End Kid last time. He lacks tactical versatility and figures to be favored.
What if these are just standard American grass horses? That is, well below European graded stakes par? That’s in play – and England-based Glacius is the play.
Granted, trainer Hugo Palmer’s North American record stands at 15-0-0-1, but few, if any, of those horses looked like key players when they ran here. Glacius fits.
The colt showed a lot more pace in three starts at 2 than he has in two longer starts at 3. Luis Saez picks up the mount, and Saez tends to make the most of whatever pace his ride possesses. Not only did Glacius run into star miler Bow Echo in his 2-year-old finale, he has faced rock-solid, high-end competition throughout his career: Sallal, who won Glacius’s last race, exited an outstanding handicap win at Epsom and was odds-on at Sandown.
Glacius stays the distance, he has run turns well, he’s set to peak in his third start of the year, and he can upset the Saratoga Derby.
Yellow Ribbon
I have a strong positive opinion on Hughes in the Best Pal but suspect his price will be too short. Warming should offer more value in the Yellow Ribbon.
This filly quietly made a leap in the Gallorette, turning in an eye-catching performance. Her Anchorage last out marked a step back. Why? The ground came up softer than she prefers, and – my guess – she was practicing for the Yellow Ribbon.
Note the tightly spaced recent Fair Hill works. Warming returns to California a hot commodity.
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